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Critical Literacies and the Challenge of Online Learning

In recent years the massive open online course (MOOC) has become widely popular, but it has also demonstrated some of the key challenges facing online students. Challenges to MOOCs have included high dropout rates and the need for students to be self-sufficient online. In this talk the developer of the original MOOC, Stephen Downes, addresses this challenge by underling a set of competencies or skills recommended for both teachers and learners in virtual environments. These competencies, which he describes as ‘critical literacies’, support an approach to online learning based in an immersive online pedagogy in a personal learning environment supporting engagement with online courses, communities of practice, and workplace communities.

This is an image of a fish in a cave in Kakado It teaches people what parts to each, what parts to avoid – it is an anatomy Understanding what the picture means is a matter of recognizing what sort of thing this is, rather than a dictionary definition

We have always (well, since the 1600s) thought of knowledge and learning as accumulations of facts, data.. Think of things like libraries, encyclopedias Learning was therefore a matter of accumulating those fact… getting the basics, learning your ABCs… collecting subjects, courses, competencies Our learning is structured this way – organized by topic, subject, program, class

Things are changing – gradually One way to look at – knowledge is gradually shifting from knowledge of a domain to knowledge of a function For example – you don’t study geology – you study how to be a geologist Kuhn (Structure of Scientific Revolutions) – learning a subject is learning how to solve the problems at the end of the chapter

Another way to look at it… Knowledge was thought of as having a bunch of sentences in the brain, that you could recall as needed Today, knowledge is thought of more along the lines of a skill – Gilbert Ryle – a disposition to behave (Concept of Mind) – Michael Polanyi – tacit knowledge (Personal Knowledge)

What is it to ‘complete’ a course of learning? The presumption that there is a linear order The presumption that there are ‘foundational’ things to learn The case of ‘addition’ and ‘multiplication’ in Common Core The case of ‘to be’ in language “Me Grog. Me hungry.” or “I have six years.”

Go beyond traditional conceptions, conceptions like: messages have a sender and a receiver words get meaning from what they represent truth is based on the real world events have a cause, and causes can be known science is based on forming and testing hypotheses These, taken together, constitute, a static, linear, coherent picture of the world

Thinks we think of as ‘skills’ - performance, simulation, appropriation, etc - are actually languages and should be understood in terms of these six dimensions

The image is a hidden markov model - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Markov_model The idea that the brain is a network of connections and we learn by forming connections The contents of our mind do not ‘stand for’ or ‘represent’ phenomena in the work Think of direct perception – JJ Gibson - http://ione.psy.uconn.edu/~cespaweb/docs/MC.pdf or http://ione.psy.uconn.edu/~cespaweb/docs/MC.pdf

LPSS

Critical Literacies and the Challenge of Online Learning

1.
Critical Literacies and the Challenge
of Online Learning
Stephen Downes, National Research Council Canada
to TESL Canada 2015, lake Louise, Alberta
October 30, 2015
http://www.downes.ca/presentation/369

2.
Why is this funny?
“An image macro
of one or more
cats. The image's
text is often
idiosyncratic and
grammatically
incorrect.”

3.
How do we know anything at all?
We can, as we
understand the
prehistoric,
understand the
future, by reading
the artifacts.

4.
Science, knowledge are like language
They are not an
accumulation of
facts, they are a
system or form of
organization, a
way of seeing the
world.
Image: http://www.atelier.net/en/trends/articles/wolfram-alpha-plugging-vast-electronic-brain

5.
Their MOOCs, our MOOCs
‘MOOC’ stands
for “Massive
Open Online
Course” and
were developed
in 2008.
Examples include
Coursera,
FutureLearn.
Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course

6.
Criticisms of the MOOCs
MOOCs have
face a storm of
criticism –
unprepared
students, bad
pedagogy, lack of
educational
standards, a
failure to engage,
and ultimately,
dropouts.
Image: http://mfeldstein.com/emerging-student-patterns-in-moocs-a-revised-graphical-view/

7.
A Wider Conception of Learning
What does it
mean to
‘complete’ a
newspaper?
What is the
proper foundation
for a buffet?

9.
Meaning – it’s not just semantics any more
This brings us
back to language
– what is the
‘core’ of a
language? What
are the
foundations?
Image: http://www.alegoo.com/pictures7/art-tattoos-2/tattoos-with-meaning-029/

10.
The Critical Literacies
This is a frame
for understanding
new media – and
for understanding
what it is to know,
learn, and
understand

17.
Knowledge as Recognition
Our conception o
knowledge itself
is insufficient to
account for these
various
dimensions of
literacy.
Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Create_a_Mind

18.
Learning Environment as a Place to Grow
Our work at NRC
is devoted to
creating a linked
interconnected
environment
where people can
experience and
grow.
Image: http://taftportfolio.blogspot.ca/p/personal-learning-environment-ple.html